World’s Coolest Dictator Just Cancelled Crypto Taxes

Source – CC0 Wikimedia Image 

Nayib Bukele is unconventional. 

He sports a signature wardrobe of skinny jeans, baseball caps, and aviator sunglasses. 

And his leadership style is like a watered-down version of Donald Trump. He’s an acquired taste, but make no mistake, he’s a shrewd operator who knows how to get things done.

Bukele is no stranger to adversity. 

While campaigning for El Salvador’s presidency, he encountered a significant roadblock. The Electoral Supreme Court didn’t think he was eligible to participate in the election because of a disagreement about his party affiliation.

Bukele decided to take his campaign directly to the people. 

He climbed on top of a garbage truck and started addressing a crowd of supporters who had gathered to hear him speak. He called on them to join him in a peaceful protest against the ruling, and together they marched through the streets of the capital, San Salvador.

It was like a scene out of a Hollywood film. 

The protest turned out to be a pivotal moment in Bukele’s campaign. It mainly demonstrated his willingness to stand up to authority and fight for what he believed in. Eventually, Bukele’s persistence paid off, and he was allowed to run for president, which he won in a landslide victory.

If you thought the man had giant Kahunas, he didn’t stop there. The new president of El Salvador’s next step was to tackle gang violence in San Salvador. 

Accompanied by heavily armed soldiers and police officers, Bukele walked into a park known to be controlled by the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang, responsible for a significant portion of the country’s violent crimes. 

The president approached the gang members and persuaded them to surrender their weapons, promising improved living conditions and job opportunities. Initially hesitant, the gang members eventually agreed, and Bukele collected the guns.

Like Trump, Bukele has a penchant for Tweeting. After receiving criticism in the media for being an authoritarian leader, he once changed his Twitter bio to “The World’s Coolest Dictator”. 

Using humour and irony to own the label was a good strategy. 

Bukele’s Bet on Bitcoin Doesn’t Convince Economists.

In 2021, Bukele announced that his government would officially accept Bitcoin as a legal currency, making it the first country in the world to do so. 

He saw this as a chance to promote financial inclusion and encourage economic growth in his country. He tweeted that El Salvador had bought its first 200 coins, and their brokers would purchase more as the deadline approached. 

It sparked mixed reactions from financial experts globally. While some viewed it as a bold move towards the future of finance, others criticised it as a risky and volatile gamble. 

Steve Hanke, a highly skilled professor who teaches currencies at a university in Baltimore and a top economist for President Reagan, thinks Bukele’s gone mad.

He’s saying that introducing Bitcoin in El Salvador will likely cause their economy to become unstable and experience high inflation like other countries in Latin America.

Hanke says Stability is essential because everything else becomes meaningless without it. He also thinks it would be crazy to use Bitcoin in a place with corruption.

 

Steve Hanke — Source

“El Salvador now has the most distressed sovereign debt in the world, and it’s because of the Bitcoin folly. The markets think that Bukele’s gone mad, and he has.

You’d have to be insane to introduce Bitcoin into a corrupt environment.

In El Salvador’s current situation, if you introduce a new coin, you will end up with Latin American-type inflation and more ups and downs in the economy.

In short, you will destabilise the economy. And while Stability might not be everything, everything is nothing without Stability.”

 

Unfazed, Bukele has doubled down on his Bitcoin strategy and is trying to attract more technology innovation by eliminating the tax on technology innovations. 

He’s recently announced on Twitter that he plans to send a bill to congress to remove all taxes on technology innovations which has led to speculation that it may include Cryptocurrency. 

This move would make El Salvador an attractive destination for crypto investors and encourage the adoption of Bitcoin in the country. 

This bill would make El Salvador one of the world’s most crypto-friendly countries and could pave the way for other countries to follow suit.

 

Nayib Bukele – Source

Next week, I’ll be sending a bill to congress to eliminate all taxes (income, property, capital gains and import tariffs) on technology innovations, such as software programming, coding, apps and AI development; as well as computing and communications hardware manufacturing.

 

Final Thoughts 

Nayib Bukele is a unique leader who has repeatedly shown an unconventional political approach. 

The former Yamaha Motors dealer and significant Bitcoin believer wanted to support El Salvador’s unbanked residents, who comprise 70% of the population.

The country and global press met his introduction of Bitcoin as a legal currency with mixed reactions.

According to his Twitter, he doesn’t give a sh*t. 

And he now plans to remove taxes on technology innovations, which could include Cryptocurrency. It’s a move that may make El Salvador the crypto hub of the world and attract more investors to the country. 

Despite the criticism of economists such as Steve Hanke, Nayib Bukele is leading the charge in Bitcoin adoption, and he’s doing it by eliminating tax barriers. 

It’s a move that could make El Salvador the new frontier for crypto and attract a surge of investment in the country’s economy.

Time will tell.